The dark side of the family photo“I have a photo from the 1920s with my father’s mother, her brothers and sisters, and my mother. I used to think it was a normal family photo, and was very proud of it. But then I discovered that there was a stamp on the back of the photo which said “Institute of Racial Biology, Uppsala’.” Lis-Mari Hjortfors, Árran Lule Sami Centre, 2012.Research in racial biology in Norway and Sweden Racial biology flowered from the latter half of the 1800s up to the 1940s. According to these theories, the Sami were regarded as belonging to an inferior race. In this period the Sami people in Tysfjord were subjected to a programme of racial measuring. 210 Sami were measured. For each one 28 measurements were taken. In a research report published by The Norwegian Academy of Science in Oslo in 1932, we can read the following: “As is usual among primitive people, the Lapps, despite their inquisitive and friendly nature, were vehemently opposed to subjecting themselves to a scientific study, especially if it involved undressing and most of all if it involved taking the bindings off their painstakingly bound feet.” Alette Schreiner, 1932 Photo of Anne Abmusdatter Kurak from Schreiner’s report of 1932 where she is referred to as no. 6.